Barnes & Noble to Build Nook With Samsung

Barnes & Noble Inc.’s (NYSE: BKS) Nook could begin a resurrection after years of poundings by Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle and the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPad. The deeply trouble book retailer will produce co-branded Nook models with Samsung, which has offered its own challenges to the iPad. The recovery pits Barnes & Noble against companies with much greater marketing capacity, larger balance sheet power and huge earnings.

The co-branded devices will combine popular Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 hardware with customized NOOK software to give customers powerful, full-featured tablets that are designed for reading, with easy access to Barnes & Noble’s expansive digital collection of more than three million books, leading magazines and newspapers.

The companies are expected to introduce Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK in a 7-inch version in the U.S. in early August. The co-branded tablets will be prominently displayed along with NOOK eReaders and sold at Barnes & Noble’s nearly 700 bookstores across the U.S. and online at bn.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites.

Barnes & Noble has to boast about sales of a product that never caught on well. Amazon has used its customer base and brand power to introduce version after version of the Kindle, which has evolved from a simple e-reader into a powerful tablet, and one of the few challengers to the iPad. The Kindle comes with multiple screen sizes. And Amazon uses the Kindle as a portal to its massive bookstore and premium video service. Barnes & Noble may have a large e-book library based on titles. However, it cannot match Amazon’s movie and premium television service.